The present invention relates to a solid-state color imaging apparatus equipped with image pickup devices such as CCDs (charge-coupled devices).
A conventional solid-state color imaging apparatus such as is being disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 57-56270 or 62-43398 samples and picks up at every pixel input optical information, corresponding to an object viewed from the color imaging apparatus, through CCDs where a first CCD produces a green (G) image pickup output signal and a second CCD produces red (R) and blue (B) image pickup output signals so as to perform a predetermined pixel-shifting modulation. In the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Publication No. 57-56270, a color filter for the second CCD is constructed such that red filter components and blue filter components are arranged in correspondence with the respective pixels so as to form a checkered pattern and the first and second CCDs are arranged to be relatively shifted by a predetermined amount (for example, 1/2.mu..sub.H where .mu..sub.H represents a pixel pitch in the horizontal directions) with respect to the object image and a phase difference between the read-out image-pickup signals of the first and second CCDs is arranged to be 180.degree., thereby line-sequentially obtaining the red and blue components to produce a color signal with 2H (H represents a horizontal scanning period). On the other hand, the solid-state color imaging apparatus disclosed in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Publication No 62-43398 is constructed such that color signal filter components of color filters disposed in front of the first and second CCDs are alternately arranged in vertical directions with respect to the image pickup plane and the color signal components of both the color filters are different in arranging order from each other, thereby simultaneously re-producing three colors at every 1H.
Although satisfactory for increasing color resolution concurrently with reproducibility, of the above-described conventional solid-state color imaging apparatus, the former is disadvantageous for the vertical resolution of the luminance and color signals and the latter has a disadvantage in terms of oblique resolution of R/B. In addition, the color reproducibilities of both the color imaging apparatus are deteriorated as compared with a three-CCD type color imaging apparatus.